Animal charity Wadars needs your help to care for needy hedgehogs

Animal rescue charity Wadars will soon have its own unit to help care for orphaned and underweight hedgehogs – but it needs volunteers to assist.

Every year, Wadars responds to hundreds of calls from members of the public who are concerned about hedgehogs in their l community, including dozens of calls about youngsters that have been born later in the year and are too small to survive hibernation.

Wadars has worked closely with local vets including Grove Lodge in Worthing and Fitzalan in Littlehampton, as well as wildlife rescue centres in Siddlesham, Hastings, and Kent, to ensure the best care possible for casualties.

Demand for places to take-in underweight hedgehogs in autumn, 2017, was so great that several wildlife centres had to close their doors to them.

Before now Wadars has not had its own facilities in which to care for wildlife –but this autumn the charity is developing a small wildlife unit within one of the existing buildings at its Ferring site.

The new unit will have space in which to care for hedgehogs as well as birds and other small wildlife until they can be released back into the wild.

Wadars Operations Manager Tracy Cadman said: “It’s an exciting development for Wadars as it means that for the first time we can care for some of the hedgehogs and other wildlife here on our own site.

“We are not setting ourselves up as a hospital and will still be working alongside the other rescue centres and vets, but we will be caring for orphaned and underweight hedgehogs until they are fully fit and able to fend for themselves. We can’t do this alone and will be looking for people to volunteer in the unit and help with the cleaning and feeding of the hedgehogs and other wildlife.”

Volunteers will be asked to help keep the unit clean and tidy and record all interactions with wildlife.

They would need to be aged 16 or over and commit to at least one three-hour shift every fortnight. Experience of handling wildlife would be an advantage but training can be provided.

To find out more, call the charity on 01903 247111 or email enquiries@wadars.co.uk